Using railguns to break barriers between engineering disciplines at the United States Military Academy

Engineering students tend to view their chosen discipline as isolated from other engineering disciplines while many real world problems are interdisciplinary. This paper describes how a small scale railgun is being used to change this student perception in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the United States Military Academy. The railgun is a simple, but elegant, device ideal for a student design project. The student must combine electrical and mechanical engineering science into a single design and analysis project; in the process, the student learns that electrical and mechanical engineering are closely related-and in fact inseparable. The railgun system provides several attractive features as a teaching vehicle. The essential concepts are taught in introductory physics. The student must develop a mathematical system model (three first order, variable coefficient differential equations) and computer simulation to predict system behavior. The wise student makes first order engineering estimates to bound component values before trying to simulate the system. Using the simulation, the student selects an appropriate system design. The circuit is easily and inexpensively built and tested. Finally, a properly designed railgun dramatically grabs the observer's attention when fired.